


Word Over All, Beautiful as the Sky!

by whatthedubbs



Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [3]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: An assassin muses over his last target, F/M, Harrow was a good father and a good king, Introspection, King Harrow the Kind, M/M, Regrets, Runaan and Ethari watch kids be in love, Runaan and Ezran talk about him, Runaan wondering what purpose he serves now that the war is over, and have Thoughts, inspired by walt whitman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21672250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedubbs/pseuds/whatthedubbs
Summary: Word over all, beautiful as the sky!Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must intime be utterly lost.-Runaan watches his daughter-by-heart and her human prince spar on the grass behind Ethari’s smithy and reflects that the the world he has woken up to is very different from the one he was cut off from.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Runaan & Ezran (The Dragon Prince), Runaan/Tinker | Necklace Elf (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560703
Comments: 31
Kudos: 287





	Word Over All, Beautiful as the Sky!

**Author's Note:**

> Word over all, beautiful as the sky!  
> Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in  
> time be utterly lost;  
> That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly  
> softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
> 
> …For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;  
> I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I  
> draw near;  
> I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face  
> in the coffin.

Runaan watches his daughter-by-heart and her human prince spar on the grass behind Ethari’s smithy and reflects that the the world he has woken up to is very different from the one he was cut off from. 

Here stands a human, practically at the stones of his hearth; and it is _nothing_.

No threat. No hidden agenda. No _assignment_ for him to bind himself to.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Ethari smile to himself as the boy dances away from his daughter’s thrust with a puff of air and a flurry of sudden feathers; feels his own lips twitch at the way Rayla follows through, swift as a snake, to knock him off balance the moment his feet touch the ground again. 

A yelp, and the boy is flat on his back at his daughter’s feet, the tip of her blade held just over the point of his nose. The young prince groans and goes limp in the grass, his surrender obvious. Rayla’s bright laugh drifts up into the summer breeze as she lowers her blade to help him to his feet.

Perhaps her hands linger at the juncture of his wrists. Perhaps the flush of his face is from more than the exhilaration of their fight.

Ethari catches his eye, his brow raised inquisitively. 

_Perhaps_.

And what does perhaps mean in this new world Runaan has woken up to?

He moves to join his husband on the bench set under the kitchen window as his daughter and the prince take their ready positions once more. Turns briefly to press his lips to the curve of Ethari’s horn simply because he _can_. His husband chuckles quietly beside him, leaning into Runaan’s side briefly before returning to the project in his hands. Out in the grass the prince laughs as he uses a cushion of air to leap high over Rayla’s strike.

Runaan has taken the life of this child’s last remaining parent and cast him adrift; and in return this young man has safely returned the lost prince to his queen and his daughter (and himself) to his husband. 

Truly, he marvels at the strangeness of the turning of the wheel these two have brought about. 

If he (and those like himself) have become set in the ways of stagnation, does that mean the young hearts dancing with blade and magic on the grass are bound to the shifting and changing of things?

The moon changes, but her faces follow each other quickly in turn. But the sky…

The sky does not remain the same; though patterns of sun, moon, and stars wear it as their cloak in their own times.

On the grass, the prince trips over his own feet and knocks both himself and Rayla to the ground in a tangle of surprised limbs. Ethari snorts in amusement beside him as the two teenagers attempt to disentangle themselves.

Runaan notes that they are perhaps not as quick to recover as either is capable of.

“She could do worse,” Ethari muses. “Perhaps not the best with disguises, but a kind heart all the same.”

There was a time not so long ago when Runaan would have been horrified at the very concept. Would have happily tossed the boy from the tallest cliff in the forest for even _looking_ at his daughter.

Now he is not sure what to feel. A state of being that he is not unfamiliar with, these days.

Still, he supposes his husband is right. She _could_ do much worse. This young heart has stood by her against the storm of his own people’s anger. How many are there in the world who would stare in the face of such odds and not falter?

It is certainly a point in the young man’s favor.

—

Ethari and his husband weave their nightly dance of meal preparation upon the stone floor of the kitchen that has known their shared movements since before their heart-daughter was born. Said daughter watches them from her seat at the table and tries not to look like she is imagining herself and her young prince in their place.

Runaan passes him the bowl of fresh moonberries, still cool from the water he washed them in, and nimble fingers take the opportunity to caress the fine bones of Ethari’s wrist as they brush past. Ethari offers him a taste of the soup he is seasoning from the tips of his own fingers, the brief press of lips around his digits sparking the same swift flare of heat in his belly that it always does.

(“It needs more cloud-seed oil.”)

Their daughter’s face flushes and he shares a quick and knowing smile with his husband. Their daughter is strong and brave and has found another heart that makes the cool flow of the moon’s power within her run hot. A heart that stood at her side as together they reached out for the spokes of the wheel and broke them from its cycle.

Her young prince sits beside her at the table and tries to hide how intimidated he is by his love’s fathers-by-heart. Currently he is watching Runaan sharpen the big knife his husband prefers for slicing vegetables as if he is waiting for the head-man at his own execution. His husband would never (holds it as a point of personal pride that he has never taken a life outside of an assignment), but the expression on the young man’s face is amusing, so he keeps up the charade.

Ethari satisfies himself with a particularly cryptic smile when the boy meets his eyes. After all, it is _he_ the young prince would have to watch out for if Ethari had not already decided he approves.

He thinks Runaan is of the same mind as well, though they have not yet discussed it. His heart-sister and brother have already given their blessing; but in the eyes of their people it is the approval of Runaan and himself that carries true weight. After all, they are the ones who raised her for most of her life; sat up with her through the first cramps and pains of her moon-gifted cycles a scant few years ago, guided her in her chosen path when her parents were disgraced. It is _them_ that Prince Callum must seek permission from if he wishes to court their heart-daughter openly among her own people. They stand second in line behind their daughter, though it is plain her mind and heart have already made their decision. 

He and his husband continue their dance, and under their hands the meal takes shape; a thick and spicy soup with just the right amount of cloud-seed oil to put embers upon the tongue. Thick cream with swirls of moonberry running through its stiff peaks to cool the mouth afterwards. Warm bread with hints of rosemary thinly sliced by skilled hands. A chilled bottle of something sweet and not-too-strong to honor a guest at their table. 

(Ethari thinks back years to the first time he and Runaan shared such a bottle, and to the heat of wandering hands and wine-cool lips that followed; and resolves to make sure his daughter sleeps in her _own_ room tonight).

They eat under the moon’s first light, Ethair and his husband listening to the tales of the young ones’ travels, occasionally offering comment on places and people they recognize. Runaan listens intently as Callum recounts an unfriendly spar with an angry guard captain that the young human had managed to win using a trick Rayla taught him, a thoughtful look in his eyes as the boy speaks highly of their daughter’s skill as a teacher. 

Perhaps he will ask his husband tonight.

—

Runaan stands before the grave of a king he has come to know through stories; both of the voice and of behavior. The humans of Katolis claim his son and step-son to be much like him; compassionate and honorable and determined. 

He wonders how such a man could have murdered the dragon king. His own king was known to have been of much the same mind. Could they have been heart-brothers, as young Azymondias and King Ezran are?

The general Amaya claims he was driven by grief for his queen, struck down before his eyes by Thunder at the defeat of the magma titan; a battle itself fought to make a safer future for their children. Runaan thinks Ethari might better understand the man’s motivation, after all that has happened.

The statue that stands before him stands tall and sure as its subject had been on the night Runaan’s blades loosed his spirit from his flesh. His eyes are kindly in that way Runaan’s own husband’s so often are, the curve of his lips warm and welcoming.

Runaan has been told that the sculptors used Prince Callum’s drawings as their reference. This is their king as he looked upon the child not of his blood that he had still taken into his heart as his own. This is the man Runaan’s deeds have torn from the sons and the kingdom that loved him as he loved them. 

He has not often felt such regret for the things his chosen path have led him to do. 

He is (suddenly) (achingly) _proud_ of his heart-daughter for refusing to kill this man’s sons. For looking her quarry in the eye and seeing immediately that they do not walk the path of darkness so many of their kind have trod. For trying to stay his hand from their father; driven by grief and the dark whispers of the viper that followed in his shadow rather than any corruption of his own. Perhaps this man’s life was the price that _had_ to be paid for the breaking of the cycle; but Runaan finds himself wishing it had been otherwise.

Behind him a door opens, and a quick glance informs him that the young king has joined him, his guards waiting respectfully (if watchfully) by the doorway as the boy makes his way down the length of plush crimson that lies between the entrance and the graves of his ancestors. At his brow rest the same uneven towers that once adorned his father; and above them rests his animal companion, comical atop the great pile of his hair. In his hands he holds a round river stone; of just the size to fit into a palm much larger than the boy’s own. 

The boy joins him before his father, looking up into kindly stone eyes and smile with a flash of longing that makes Runnan feel as if he has been struck with a knife. Carefully, oh so carefully, the young king reaches up to place his river-stone into the statue’s carved hand; a perfect fit born of years of love between them, showing a bond between father and son that few can even dream of. 

“He used to skip them on the moat when he needed time to think about things,” the boy states as he steps back to stand beside his father’s killer. “He was terrible at finding good ones, though, so Callum and I used to go down to the river to find them for him. The guards at the drawbridge kept them in a box for when he needed them.” A watery smile. “People from the city used to go diving for them in the southwest corner where the water’s shallower. They say they bring good luck and love into your home.”

Runaan can say nothing; words dead and heavy on his tongue. So much that he though taken by humans from his people has been returned. Their prince, the peace, his heart-sister and heart-brother. So little has been given to the humans who had enough courage to return them all. Mother and father dead, childhood friends turned against them or damaged beyond repair, a trusted advisor turned dark and traitorous. And yet they do not take the bitterness of the losses into their hearts, as so many have done before them. 

No, they teach the dragon prince how to fly, tell each other stories of the great heroes of their people over the campfire, bring smiles and laughter to his daughter’s face when he worried they would never come as easily to her. They have forgiven him for his unforgivable act; and seek out his company before their own hearth as if he were an old and trusted mentor. 

“I’m no good at skipping stones,” the prince continues, looking up to meet Runaan’s eyes (Runaan does not turn away, even in his shame, for this is something he _owes)_. “And I just talk things out with Bait and the horses in the stables when I need to think about stuff; but I think dad would be happy that he can still give them luck, even though he’s gone. Opeli takes the stones I bring him and gives them away to other kids on holidays for me.” He smiles. “She says someday when I’m older I can give them away myself on feast-days.”

(Oh this boy; this young heart who carries the heavy weight of his crown and his people as if it is nothing. He is too young to have been burdened so, and yet he is happy to bear it).

Runaan kneels to meet the boy’s eyes because truths of the heart are for equals, as all hearts are equals. “I did not know your father,” he swallows, “but from what you and your brother have told us of him, I believe you are right. He trod the pathways of his life in the light of the moon and the stars, and wished nothing but good fortune and prosperity for his people.” He does not reach out to the young king, as much as he wishes to. It would be too much to ask for his guards not to interrupt; and this truth needs to be spoken. “I know this, because I have seen these things in you, young Ezran, and your brother claims them as the things that remind him most of the man who was his father of heart, if not in blood.”

The king smiles at his words; reaches out on his own to place small hands on Runaan’s much larger shoulders.

“Thank you, Runaan. For seeing him. It means a lot to me.”

The boy takes back his hands, and Runaan rises to his feet once more (and the guards relax their posture ever so slightly). Together they look again upon the grave of King Harrow the Kind; an ending and a beginning standing side by side in the golden light of late afternoon sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have lots of Thoughts about these two, and how they fit into everything, and I keep finding pieces of music that frame those thoughts in a way that makes them coherent enough to write about. This came from a movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Dona Nobis Pacem;' a setting of 'Reconciliation' by Walt Whitman that functions as a sort of spiritual and emotional resting place between a setting of 'Beat! Beat! Drums!' and 'Dirge for Two Veterans.' The setting of it is divided into two sections (the original text does not, I think, have the break in the middle that appears in the summary of this work); and those sections reminded me of two situations that Runaan and Ethari have to face: Meeting the human boy who loves their daughter, and confronting the fact that Runaan killed a king who was not the monster he had been lead to believe. 
> 
> Ezran's ability to sucker-punch people right in the feels surprised me here.
> 
> Update: I discovered that the recording of the Dona Nobis Pacem that I listen to is actually on YouTube, so have some links, because it's definitely worth a listen.
> 
> Here's the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne1U91mFF3c
> 
> And here's just Reconciliation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjTi-PkukA


End file.
